The IRS Already Extended Almost Every Californian’s Tax Deadline Once. Now We Have Until October

Because of weather-related disasters across the state earlier this year, the Internal Revenue Service last month granted a one-month tax extension to residents of almost every California county. The usual April 15 deadline was pushed until May 15.

On Friday, the IRS announced a second extension—this one a full, five-month reprieve, to Oct. 16.

The extension covers the overwhelming majority of California residents, including the entire nine-county Bay Area, plus Sacramento and the hard-hit Santa Cruz County. It also applies to parts of Alabama and Georgia, which endured a weather-related state of emergency of their own.

While the first extension was meant to provide relief to people who endured billions of dollars in property losses—as well as 41 fatalities—during weeks of severe weather, the IRS did not specify a reason for this second, considerably longer extension.

"The additional relief postpones until Oct. 16, various tax filing and payment deadlines, including those for most calendar-year 2022 individual and business returns," the agency said in a release. "The Oct. 16 deadline also applies to the estimated tax payment for the fourth quarter of 2022, originally due on Jan. 17, 2023."

Importantly, this move is strictly at the federal level. The California State Franchise Tax Board has not yet given state residents a similar break. But after the IRS's first deadline postponement in January, both California and the city of San Francisco granted identical extensions within two days.

A more recent round of storms brought snow and record chill to the Bay Area while wreaking havoc across Southern California but has not caused nearly as much damage as January's atmospheric rivers.